Perfect Pitch (17 page)

She’d tried to find a sponsor. She’d reached out to dozens of Wake County small businesses, to the Mom and Pop stores she’d helped as Summer Queen. Mr. Marx, the owner of the organic grocery store, though, had spoken for all when he said, “Maybe, if we had more time, to build it into our budget. Check back next year.”

There wouldn’t be a next year.
 

Sam had to get her life back on track. She had to set aside the dream of Musicall once and for all. She had to find a paying job, get on with the business of living her life.
 

A life without DJ Thomas. She couldn’t believe how much she missed him. Even now, four weeks since they’d spoken, she hoped to see his name every time her phone buzzed. She expected to laugh at his texts. She started to call him with her own amusing tales, quick little stories about how her day had gone. Four separate times, she’d driven to his house, but she’d never had the nerve to get out of her car.

The audience’s rumble grew louder, as people waited for the judges to make their decision. Sam barely heard the person next to her ask, “Excuse me. Is this seat taken?”

She shook her head, automatically pasting on a smile before she opened her eyes.

“DJ!” She almost choked on her harsh whisper. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you might want company when they choose the next Summer Queen. You shouldn’t be alone today.”

“Hush!” she said, automatically looking around at the crowd. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to overhear him. It was bad enough she was watching the selection; she couldn’t bear to be the center of attention if anyone recognized her. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“You’re the one who told me about watching from the back row.”

She
had
told him that, about ice cream and movies and her mother. He didn’t have to grin like that when he reminded her, though. He didn’t have to look so damn gorgeous, either. Those jeans looked like they’d been sculpted just for him, and that black T-shirt was tight enough that she didn’t have to use her imagination to picture the muscles across his chest. Her imagination, or her memory…

As she tried to think of a witty reply, the contestants filed on stage, taking their places in a precise arc. Sam knew they’d practiced the formation half a dozen times in the preceding week. She could remember the butterflies she’d had in her own stomach when she’d stood up there, the frantic, desperate uncertainty as she’d watched the judges resume their seats. Upping the ante, there were three separate cameramen from the local news. Bill Morton himself waited to interview the new queen on behalf of
Wake Up Wake County.

Trying to distract herself from the competition, from the wave of nerves that threatened to overwhelm her even now, she said to DJ, “I’m fine. You didn’t have to come here. I don’t need you to hold my hand.” As if to prove her point, she moved her elbow off the armrest they shared.

“Holding your
hand
wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, sweetheart.”
 

His arch words lashed through her. He could have said them in any of their phone conversations, any one of those long nights they’d talked till dawn. “That’s it?” she said. “You break my heart, and then you think a little flirting will make everything all right?”

As if to give her a credible distraction, Judith Burroughs stepped up to the lectern. The grande dame was in her element, clearly relishing the attention on
her
pageant, on
her
contestants. She brandished an envelope sealed with a green ribbon.

DJ ignored the stage. Instead, he set his hand along the line of Sam’s jaw. His touch was soft, tender, and his palm brushed against her lips. Unwilling, she breathed in the familiar cedar scent of him, and she bit her lower lip as her belly swooped past her knees. “I never meant to break your heart,” he said. “I was an idiot.”

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t do this. Not here. Not now. Not when Judith Burroughs was clearing her throat, about to announce the new Summer Queen.
 

There. The familiar whiskey-and-cigarette rumble was projected through the sound system: “The Wake County Summer Fair has a long tradition of…”

When she opened her eyes, DJ’s hand still hovered by her face. “Please,” she said, but she didn’t pull away.

“Hush!” Two people turned around in front of her, holding fingers to their lips and nodding angrily toward the stage.

“Sam, I said things to you I never should have said. I was angry—with myself for screwing up the game, with my father for…being my father. I never should have taken my frustration out on you. You never deserved that.”

“Be quiet!” snapped someone two rows away.
 

“DJ,” Sam said, taking his hand in hers, trying to stop him, trying to disappear beneath the angry glares of the Summer Fair patrons. She couldn’t believe what he was saying. The apology she’d longed for, the confession she’d craved. But how could this be happening here, in the Wake County Auditorium, with thousands of curious eyes, all beginning to turn toward her?

A man near the aisle ordered, “Shut up!” As if to emphasize the command, Judith leaned closer to the microphone, raising her voice as she said, “The Summer Queen represents everything that is good and pure and true about our community.”

But Sam wasn’t feeling good or pure or true as DJ’s fingers clutched hers. The last thing she was thinking about was
community
as he said, “I get it now. I really do. You were only trying to make me see what was best for Daniel.”

Daniel
. That was the first time she’d ever heard DJ call his son anything other than
Trey
. That was the first time DJ had acknowledged, even tacitly, that his son might break free from the baseball dynasty that had brought him so many mixed emotions. Her heart swelled, and she had trouble drawing a full breath.
 

DJ shook his head as if she’d made some protest out loud. “It’s not right Sam. This is all my fault. You shouldn’t be abandoned in the back row of a theater, while someone takes your place on stage.”

He was speaking at full volume, and a dozen people turned to stare. His hand clutched hers, as if he could force her to understand him, as if he could pour all of his emotions into her. His strength surrounded her like a tangible aura, the sheer certainty that had led a team of men to victory, game after game. She rose when he did; she let him guide her past the knees of the other people in their row.

“Come on, DJ,” she whispered urgently. “We can talk in the lobby.” She tugged him toward the auditorium doors.

But there was no moving DJ Thomas when he didn’t want to be moved. He stood a head taller than she did. His shoulders were broad enough to block her view of the contestants. His fingers tightened on hers, pulling her close. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Samantha Winger,” he said fiercely. “You never did anything wrong.”

Up on the stage, Judith put a hand to her brow, trying to peer past the lights to determine what inconsiderate lout was interrupting her award ceremony. Two of the other judges stood, craning their necks to make out what was going on.
 

DJ had obviously intended her name to be heard. The audience began to whisper, and several people turned around, jostling each other for a better view. One of the cameramen trotted down the aisle, shouldering his equipment as he crouched before them.

“DJ, we can’t do this here,” Sam said. But no one had ever told DJ Thomas what to do and when to do it. Not if he didn’t already want to be told. “Not in public.”

“We
have
to do this here,” he contradicted, projecting his voice toward the stage, and the apoplectic Judith Burroughs. “My being stupid in public cost you your crown. This is the only way I can try to make it up to you.”

Sam saw the red light on the camera. Her reply was being captured, live. She knew she should be embarrassed. Shocked. But the only thing she felt was an overwhelming happiness that she was finally talking to DJ again, that he had found her and apologized to her. Even if he
was
turning things into a spectacle. “DJ, you don’t have to make it up to me.”

For a reply, he reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He produced a slip of paper, which he unfolded and displayed above his head. “This is for you, Sam. For Musicall.”

He was a ballplayer. He lived his life in front of crowds, in front of cameras. He knew precisely how to manage the attention of thousands, how to capture their imagination, their hopes, their dreams.

He let the camera focus on the paper, held it steady for a count of five. And then he handed the thing to Sam.

It was a check. A large one, printed by a bank, drawn on the account of the Daniel Thomas Junior Foundation. On the Memo line, in capital letters, it said, “FOR THE CREATION AND FUNDING OF MUSICALL.” And there were enough zeroes that her heart skipped a beat.

“DJ, you can’t do this.”

“I already have.”

“Why?” It was the only question she could ask. The only one where the answer mattered more than anything else had mattered in her entire life.

“I know one student, Daniel, who will be heartbroken if he can’t go to Musicall camp for the summer. And he’ll never forgive me if there isn’t an after-school program next year.”

“But Musicall is
my
project,” she insisted. “I’m the one responsible for funding it.”

“Can’t it be ours?” he asked. And before the words were fully out of his mouth, he sank to one knee.
 

He moved with the grace of an athlete, of a man fully in control of every muscle in his body. His back was straight. His head was tilted at a precise angle. He caught her free hand in one of his and produced a black velvet box from his pocket.

One flick of his thumb, and she was staring at the most gorgeous diamond ring she had ever seen—a platinum band, with an emerald-cut stone that captured all the light in the auditorium. “Samantha Winger,” he said, in a voice that echoed in the suddenly dead-silent room. “Will you marry me?”

She was laughing. She was crying. She was trembling, as if her knees were about to give out and she might sink to the floor and never rise again. She knew that every single person in the Wake County Auditorium was staring at her—at
them
—and yet the only thing she saw was the man who knelt before her.

DJ measured her with the precision stare of a man used to taking signals from the plate. She saw his eyes flick to her hand, safe inside his. He glanced at her throat as she swallowed. He followed the flick of her tongue as she wet her lips.
 

But his gaze settled on hers—patient. Kind. Loving.

“Yes,” she said, and the clutch of his fingers around hers was the only thing that kept her standing. “Yes, DJ Thomas. I’ll marry you.”

He hurtled from his knees and slipped the ring on her finger before he pulled her close. She felt his laughter deep in his chest, the vibration sparking along every nerve of her body. His right hand tightened on her hip, telegraphing an entire playbook of need. His left hand cupped the back of her neck, tilting her head to the perfect angle. His lips on hers were chaste, but only for a heartbeat. He deepened the kiss, asking, answering, and she knew it would take decades for them to complete the conversation.

But for now, the cameras were rolling; they were being broadcast live from the Summer Fair. Bill Morton was pushing forward, microphone at the ready. Audience members were pressing close, raising their phones to snatch so many photos that Sam saw stars.

Or maybe that was just the effect of standing in DJ’s arms.
 

Realizing that she needed to restore the slightest remnant of decorum, Sam took a half step away. But she laced her fingers between DJ’s, determined to keep him close as they faced the press together. Questions began to fly, with Bill Morton taking the lead.

She found the red light of the closest camera, and she raised her hand so that her engagement ring sparkled. Tossing back her hair, she moistened her lips and offered up her first answer. “Yes, Bill,” she said. “Thank you for asking. I’ve known DJ Thomas for a couple of months now. Ever since he compared his great pitching to the hard work of being the Summer Queen.”

The crowd laughed. They were all in on the joke. They knew her past with DJ.
 

Sam settled closer to the man she loved as she answered a flurry of questions about their future, about the life they intended to share together, forever. Somehow, she suspected it would be a long time before the ceremony got back on track and the next Summer Queen was crowned.

Read on, for a sneak peek at the next Diamond Brides romance,
Catching Hell
!

* * *

Some day, all this would be hers.

Anna Benson sighed as she looked around the owner’s suite at Rockets Field. The cleaning crew had worked their magic during the night, emptying trashcans and restocking the small refrigerator with soft drinks and game-time snacks.
 

But they hadn’t touched the huge table that ran along the side wall, the one snowed under by a blizzard of papers. And they hadn’t moved the beat-up laptop that was plugged into the wall. And they hadn’t shifted a single one of the multicolor pens, pencils, and highlighters standing at attention in a variety of old coffee cans scattered around the room.
 

The cleaning crew was the best that money could buy.

Anna grabbed a can of Coca-Cola, her third of the day, but before she could drink it down she turned to the thermostat on the wall and made a quick adjustment. The suite was chilly, especially for a Friday evening in June. Maybe it would warm up before Gramps had a chance to complain. Anna shook her head. The gruff old man complained about everything—the weather, the umpires, the low-sodium, low-sugar snacks Anna kept on hand.
 

Let him argue. She intended to keep him with her as long as possible.

As if in response to her tart mental challenge, the door to the suite opened, and her grandfather’s querulous voice drifted into the room. Damn. Gramps was in the heavy-duty wheelchair, the one that gave him full support for his head and neck. A quick glance at Rob, Gramps’ day-nurse, confirmed her suspicions. This was a bad day.